Is it true that the English are originally from Germany?

Question

In pre-historic times they migrated from Germany to the British Isles?

Answer 1

England was originally inhabited by Celts. Later, it was invaded by the Romans, who eventually withdrew. At some point after that, England was invaded by Angles, Saxons, and Jutes, who came from what is now Germany. England was also later invaded by Vikings, who came from Scandinavia. In short, England is just a melting pot.

Answer 2

The Roman Empire withdrew military support from Britain in 410 CE, and over the next two centuries there appears to have been an influx of Anglo-Saxons from Germany. There was a widely held tradition that the original Celtic inhabitants of what is now England were largely killed or displaced by Anglo-Saxon invaders, but the evidence for this is mixed, and it does appear that Anglo-Saxons and Britons lived together and interbred. The English language is a Germanic and not a Celtic one, and apparently borrowed very few words from the original British language. So it would be accurate to say that the English originated mainly in Germany and migrated to England in the middle ages rather than prehistoric times.

Answer 3

~The Saxons kicked the Celts out of western Germany through France and off the continent. The Anglos returned the favor and moved the Saxons onto Britain. The Saxons pushed the Celts into Ireland. Meanwhile, the Anglos were chased off the continent and the Gauls, another Teuton tribe ceded Normandy to the Norseman, another Teutonic tribe. The Normans took over Britain.
To the south, the Etruscans, a southern Teutonic tribe was pushed over the Alps, down the Danube and Arno and eventually they founded Rome and evolved into Italians.
You will find the the Teutons conquered most of western Europe and are the forebearers of most of Western civilization from the time the Greeks were coming into power in the southeast.
Hitler did not have a novel idea. He was simply trying to re-do what his German ancestors had already done.

Answer 4

Actually if you want to get into the pre-historic then all life originated in Africa. Over several centuries, those people began to migrate north with the animal herds. Eventually the glaciers that covered Europe and Asia cut off the groups that had gone north. The people that were still in Africa and the lower part of Asia were known as Chromagden man while the people that were trapped above the glaciers were known as Neanderthals. Eventually the glaciers melted and the two societies met and unfortunately the Neanderthals could not compete for food with the Chromagdens and therefore died out.

Answer 5

I agree with the awnsers above but would like to note several differences:

In Julius Caesars on the Gallic wars he noted that the habits of the Gauls were different to the Belgae and the Germanic tribes, as noted before. He described the Belgae as more comparable to the Germanic tribes. In Britain he gave us the fact that the British tribe had developed quite differently from the Belgae, Germanic Tribes people and the Gauls.

It is also known that the Vetii tribe (Belgae) had superior ocean going ships. Though I would like to note even though there is evidence of trade the difference of the communal British are more like Gauls than Belgae. Even though the customry paint (woad) style of Dress and war by Chariot (not to mention horses) is quite different to the Belgae and still different from the Gauls.

From Caesars texts we gather that settlement has been much longer than the Belgae infringement on Gallic territory (as seems to happen as reported by Caesar, as previous to his campaign).

So as for pre-historic immigrating Germanic tribes (which have discriminated on the basis that if I list them all(or ones we know of) it will be very difficult and irrelevant - due to Roman catergorising which I wont go into), Im guessing maybe. If I venture a guess the evidence suggest that a migration by Germanic tribes down into Gaul, at the same time crossed the channel, and later into Ireland. The high development of Warfare may have pushed tribes into Ireland, and Scotland.

Personally I would like to question the use of language as proof, as we do not understand any of the Germanic tribes peoples langauge and am skeptical about ancient Celtic in comparison to today, not to mention latin influences. The pure english language is so diluted that we cannot read (the reasonable person) what was written in 1066

Answer 6

The Angles and Saxons were from what is present day Germany. There is still a region of Germany called Saxony. The current royal family of England came from Saxony in the 1700s. Many of the tribes whose descendants formed the modern English people were of Germanic if not German origin: Frisians and Jutes (Netherlands), Danes Norwegians besides the above mentioned. Also the Normans.

Answer 7

Sort of. Germanic peoples, such as the Angles and the Saxons, did migrate north to the British Isles and became part of the genetic make-up. Older tribes were also there, such as the Celts and the Welch. And the isles were once held under the sway of the Roman Empire, so there's southern European roots as well. London was founded by the Romans, as Londinium.

Answer 8

The earliest known "German" identified in England was the "king of Stonehenge", an influential individual (to judge from his burial gifts) who may have introduced bronze smithing to the region, and whose teeth appear to have formed somewhere in Bavaria (trace elements show a fingerprint that can be localized). No other matching teeth were found in other graves from that period, so it is thought that he was an individual.

The people he worked with were "indigenous" as in had migrated there a lot generations earlier. They must have had an agricultural society already, so they won't have been the first immigrants (that would have been reindeer hunters or similar).

The next known wave of immigration from somewhat "German" territory were the Belgae, the dominant nation when Caesar and his successors invaded Britain. They are thought to have been Germano-Celtic people from (or related to natives from) the lower Rhine.

Around 350, saxon pirates were so common on the canal and the British coast that the French coast was called "litus saxonicus", the Saxon shore. A while later, they started to take land, at first in cooperation with some of the local Celtic nobility, later replacing the previous nobility completely (though not the ordinary farmers). Saxon territories at that time were mostly identified with modern Lower Saxony and Westfalen. The Angles occupied southern Juteland, the Jutes (said to have settled in Kent) central Juteland. (Interestingly enough, the Thuringians are thought to have emigrated from Britain after some setbacks into Thuringia). Their migration left something of a vacuum in souther Juteland which was filled by Danes and Wends.

Around 830 the Viking raids had turned into colonization of the Anglo-Saxon lands (unlike in France, which had a stronger kingdom under the Karolingians). Danes - both from the islands and Juteland - settled in central England and Northumbria, probably from Anglia again, too.

Next German presence in England was the Hanseatic kontor in London, founded by merchants from around Cologne but slowly taken over by the Luebeck-led Hanseatic League. (This was sort of reciprocated in the Teutonic Knights who settled in Baltic territories as members fo the Hanseatic League recruiting heavily from England.) While meant to be a society apart from the natives, some mingling was inevitable.

The castle building in Wales by Edwards I amd II imported a considerable number of skilled masons etc. from the continent, including Germany.

There were no systematic immigrations from Germany afterwards, except occasional merchants or nobles imported for dynastic reasons.

Unless you count some of the Celts as "from Germany" too and don't discriminate between Norwegians and southern Danes, the German ancestry of the English averages out as one of several sizeable but not absolut majority origins.

Answer 9

not really from what we now call germany. but the entire contient of europe is all blurred togetehr and has some influences from the northern people that gradually came down to the warmer south and prevailed politically. first the angles and the saxons from scandinavia areas. then the germanic types took over what was the most part of europe when it was called the holy roman empire( not holy not roman and not an empire ha ha)
and invaded from france in to england in 1066 ( norman conquest and took over the angle and saxons to rule britain.

so I suppose the germans and the english have common ancestors, but it is not correct to say the english are really german. they ineherited the tendency to conquer after the normans took over and sort of resumed what the roman empire had started. they use many of the same methods as time goes by. they are a harsh people and can be cruel. they were really mean in africa. as bad as any germans ever thought to be.

But the height of cruelty really must go to the spanish. yikes they were mean.
now it is USA turn to be mean and take over. 40% of americans can claim some german ancestors so maybe we are really "from germany" too if the english are as we mostly came from there in our government and laws etc.
so maybe the USA are the new Nazis as many fear and believe. judging by behavior, it is hard to disprove.

Answer 10

England (not Great Britain) is the most bastardised race in the world. During conflict it has been a haven for all types of refugees and this continues to this day. During the 1840's famine in Ireland hundreds of thousands emigrated to the main ports, London and Liverpool being the biggest centres. Most 'English' people will give you an Irish Grandmother. The present queen is a descendant from the German Royal Family and Prince Philip, descended from Greek nobility.

Answer 11

It was the Saxons and they came from Saxony, (The Anglos were there too, when the Romans invaded Britain in about 54 A.D.) which later became part of Germany. Germany is a fairly new country, part of the Austrian Hungarian Empire that was broken up, after World War One.